Bulldrek v3.0

So, what are you all up to these days? I haven't really been keeping up, but I often wonder how and what all of you are doing.

For my part, in short: I'm working full-time as an accountant for a company that makes the liquid that goes in high-end e-cigarettes, as well as part-time for my old job accounting for a medical distribution company. Also going to college part-time, 6 or 7 credit-hours a semester, mostly just for the hell of it. Both jobs are great; college basically sucks because I picked a poor one, but I'll transfer one of these days.

After 17.5 years, I finally have full custody of my daughter, who lives with me full-time now, at least until she goes to college in Fall 2015, probably at MSU. It's basically the bestest thing ever, although I do wish it'd happened a couple decades earlier. Best of all, when she gets her first non-dorm apartment [in 2016 or so], I'll be paying half her rent in exchange for her taking all the pets and storing whatever material goods I can't divest myself of, leaving me free to live in a tent in the woods or whatever.

For all intents and purposes, I've effectively left the internet. I rarely check email, almost never look at Google+ or Facebook, and confine my online activities to research and reading: the whole "social" side of the internet has caused me some serious problems, including threats on my family, people tailing our cars, and other such nonsense, and...well, basically, the only fun I had socially on the internet was on Bulldrek and its progeny, so fuck it. At some point you realize that most people are really just shit, and that there's really no point in trying to change that. I'll be making the transition to full-on reclusive hermit in the woods over the next five or so years, so look for me buying shotgun shells in the nude while muttering and pulling at my beard at a store near you.

I'm driving a lifted 1995 Jeep Cherokee XJ, my fourth Cherokee and fifth Jeep, and fixing it up to sell so I can buy another Wrangler this fall. Turns out I just don't like cars with a roof, or doors, no matter how tall and awesome they are.

How about you all? What's going down in your neck of the woods?

Still sober
have new toys
working for new insurance company
Expecting new Granddaughter next month
rebuilding a relationship with my youngest daughter
Enjoying sobriety

Oh, you know, surviving.

I work in Manufacturing now, at a Tool & Die shop. It's been..interesting, thought I have come to vehemently dislike working for large corporations.

Thinking about going back to college, just local for now, get some credits and prereqs under my belt.

I had a small roleplaying group going last winter and spring, and am looking forward to reassembling it again this autumn/winter, after school starts, and the children (my son and grandson are two members of the group) are back from their summer adventures.

I currently have some sort of gall bladder problem, and am probably looking at another surgical procedure for it's removal. Not looking forward to that, but I think it would certainly be much better then I am currently experiencing.

Garden's producing some vegetables (though I got lazy this year and didn't take the care of it that I should have), looking at getting some gutters and heatcable on the roof this year, along with more attic insulation, properly installed.

Currently driving an Audi 2.7t, 2001. It's a fun car, with lots of buttons, though it needs a new front lip.

Other then that, just dealing with the day-to-day shit balls that life throws at you, trying to prevent them from turning into an avalanche.

Working for big brown, having mental relapses, staying alive.

Still working at my old job. Got rotated back to patrol in Jan 2013, then back to detective bureau, this time as a fraud investigator, in Feb 2014. Taking the sergeant's assessment in 2 weeks. However, becoming a sergeant means going back to 12-hour goofy shifts on nights for the next 5-6 years. I can retire fully if I stay there for 11.5. Considering going to work for the state if any openings come up, though that will mean I'll have to stay full-time in the workforce until I'm 65, instead of 51.5. We'll see.

Still driving my Tundra. Working on finishing my basement. Having terrible sleep problems (severe apnea) and a few other medical issues (sucks to be fat and old), probably all of which are directly related to chronic lack of sleep. Hoping to get the big projects around the house done so I can start working on my plane again. Still prepping and shooting, when I have time.

Bishop wrote:Currently driving an Audi 2.7t, 2001. It's a fun car, with lots of buttons, though it needs a new front lip.

A4, S4, A6 or S6? Do you have my old car??? I miss mine...the only car I really, really, miss. I think when my Tunrda is paid off, I will get another Audi.

A6. Apparently I missed that on my original post.

Getting old sucks. Sadly, I am having to get "old guy" shots each week. Having to also get Vitamin D in Rx doses each week, as well as a few other things that my system just isn't absorbing from supplements or food.

Still living and working in Amsterdam. Still a software engineer, trying to keep people from getting me to take up more managerial tasks. Got into Brazilian jiu jitsu pretty obsessively and do some MMA on the side, trying to keep people from getting me to compete more. Still gaming. Still travelling and enjoying life. (I'm up in the U.S. about twice a year or so, usually Chicago, San Francisco or Austin, but other places, too.)

Had a serious health scare last year but had a fairly miraculous recovery and in the process got into the best shape of my life.

I left Facebook a few years ago, but still see a few bulldrekkers when I hit Chicago (InstantCash, Daki) and I see Big Jim quite frequently. Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be able to go and support him for his fight in Las Vegas in September, but we're planning on going to Iceland in the next few months.

Still sober

What did you kick and how long have you been sober?

Working for big brown, having mental relapses, staying alive.

...what does that mean, exactly?

I am an Alcoholic, Dennis. Been sober just over 3 and a half years now.

Glad to hear you've got it under control, sin.

I still work as a Disco Scientist, and when I see a good move I look for a better one.

Have your...balls gotten any bigger?

It's all boxes man. That's what I do now, manage a few thousand boxes into trucks for hours a night and play games.

There comes a point when your life ends up being consumed by your career, and I'm not all that wild about that part.

So, the hub I work in, Charlotte, right? It may just have been the best hub it's size in the country last year. That's pretty nice. I feel like, you know, kinda pretty good at my job. That's new for me.

3278 wrote:There comes a point when your life ends up being consumed by your career, and I'm not all that wild about that part.

Hi. How are you?

One of these days I'll go back to being a regular filthy guard. Until then I'm in charge of too many peoples problems.

I just had my second book published.

I.

LIVE.

AGAIN.

Bonefish wrote:So, the hub I work in, Charlotte, right? It may just have been the best hub it's size in the country last year. That's pretty nice. I feel like, you know, kinda pretty good at my job. That's new for me.

It's funny how even a job you don't care about for its own sake can be a source of pride. I worked for a short while as the night janitor for a movie theater, some years ago, and I enjoyed being the best damned totally meaningless employee I could be. Work ethic, my parents always called it, when they told me I didn't have one. I've lost some of that, and it's disappointing to me; to rely on meaning from the job itself means having a meaningful job, and very few people do.

Ancient History wrote:I just had my second book published.

Awesome! I'm not sure I was aware you'd had a first book published. RPG-oriented, or prose-fiction? [Or non-, for that matter?]

Crazy Elf wrote:I.

LIVE.

AGAIN.

Wow, you're looking pretty good these days! Pity about the hair, though.

3278 wrote:

Ancient History wrote:I just had my second book published.

Awesome! I'm not sure I was aware you'd had a first book published. RPG-oriented, or prose-fiction? [Or non-, for that matter?]

Nonfiction. I had Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos published in September, and in January the The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Index and Addenda.

Sorry for the delay, I don't get around here much.

I'm still alive and still in Chicago! I keep randomly thinking about Bulldrek, and now have managed to actually make it back here. Of course no one else is around, bah!

Ancient History wrote:Nonfiction. I had Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos published in September, and in January the The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Index and Addenda.

That's awesome! How long have you been working on Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos? Even for someone with your encyclopedic knowledge of the author and his works, that doesn't seem like something you toss off of a summer's eve.

Big Jim wrote:I'm still alive and still in Chicago!

Still beating the hell out of people, or are you old enough now that you hurt even when you're not getting punched? [I've discovered recently that my chronic rotator cuff pain is likely due to how I sleep, which has to be the lamest "injury" I've ever heard of.]

3278 wrote:

Ancient History wrote:Nonfiction. I had Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos published in September, and in January the The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Index and Addenda.

That's awesome! How long have you been working on Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos? Even for someone with your encyclopedic knowledge of the author and his works, that doesn't seem like something you toss off of a summer's eve.

About 18 months. The original draft was over 400 pages.

3278 wrote:Still beating the hell out of people, or are you old enough now that you hurt even when you're not getting punched? [I've discovered recently that my chronic rotator cuff pain is likely due to how I sleep, which has to be the lamest "injury" I've ever heard of.]

Still fighting, although I am trying to drop weight to get under 200 pounds. Over 200 is the open division and I'm tired of fighting 270 pound monsters.

I'm also doing a lot of circus these days - partner acrobatics, trapeze, aerial straps - which is a lot of fun!

My body is holding up pretty well so far. If anything, I'm more active than ever, although not focusing enough on any one thing to really be improving. Good choices!

Big Jim wrote:Good choices!

Except for almost everything we decided to do in Iceland. While we came away (miraculously) unscathed, statistically it was a miracle.

I thought our choices in Iceland were pretty good, and feel that our survival proves me right!

Back to Los Angeles (honestly, I don't even remember where I was last time I did much on here, aside from being in Indy for a GenCon -- which is also what made me think to pop in today, since I'll be there next week). Went from LA to Austin to San Diego, and back to LA, moving to slightly better versions of the same job in the video game industry. Apparently I have picked up a Bingo in my resume buzzwords card, since I get regular cold-calls from recruiters now. Still playing games of various sorts, still enjoying life in general.

Edit to add (since others had their vehicles): Still biking and walking everywhere, like a dirty hippy, though I also technically now have a Prius, like a dirty hippy.

Living near Metro Detroit. Making sushi now, 45 hours a week. Looking for a D&D group.

Strongly considering taking some welding courses at a trade school because rolling this shit gets tiresome after a while.

Sadly Detroit is too far from GR. I miss hanging and drinking with you Dude! You ever make it GR way let me know!

Don't sit on him next time.

If there are any cyclocross races going on in or near GR, then I may go there to race.

May.